


Bluebells

by GloriaMundi



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: C19, Dreams, Historical, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-09
Updated: 2004-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreams, nightmares and old memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bluebells

He was not asleep. He was remembering -- no, reliving a memory. Riding through beech-woods on a spring morning, with a ... a friend at his side. There were bluebells on the slope above the path. The sun was warm through the layers of mail and leather and wool that he wore, and underneath it all his skin retained the heat of the other man's body, from the inn where they had slept curled around one another. His companion leaned towards him, smiling, and said his --

"Gabriel!"

The voice was real.

He came awake, properly awake, with his hands around a man's throat. He could feel the warmth of living flesh under the skin, and a rapid heartbeat twitching against his palm.

Then the light, distressed voice, and the scratch of the straw mattress beneath him, brought him back to the moment, and he realised that it was Carl who had woken him, after all. Not ... who had he been dreaming about?

His hands loosened as though Carl's skin burned.

"I'm sorry," he said, meeting the monk's blue, bewildered gaze. "It was a dream. A nightmare."

He tried to hold on to the nightmare. It had been a spring morning. The sun had been shining through the trees. He had been riding through the wood with the Count's charming, dangerous son. He'd had every reason to suspect that Vladislaus was becoming a monster: but he had kissed like a man, and his teeth against Van Helsing's throat had been blunt and human.

"Van Helsing, what's wrong?"

Van Helsing scowled, and rubbed his eyes as though that would hide everything. "Nothing's wrong, Carl. Go back to bed."

"If nothing's wrong, why do you look so stricken?" demanded the monk. His hair was dishevelled from sleep, and there was a red mark on his cheek where a bedbug had bitten him. His expression softened. "Is it Anna?"

Van Helsing stared at him. He remembered Anna Valerious dancing at the masked ball, all in red, and those long strong hands at her waist and then at her throat. He remembered the challenge in Dracula's eyes as he'd met Van Helsing's gaze. Seeing the monster's hands on her skin had made him angry, but not for the right reason. Something in his nightmare ... He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pin down the memory.

"She's in Heaven, Gabriel. She and all her kin."

"I ... know," said Van Helsing, opening his eyes and staring at the thin line of moonlight between the shutters. It would be unthinkable to tell the monk how little he cared, now, about Anna's fate.

He cast around for the fragments of the dream. A wood, with bluebells. Vladislaus Dracula riding at his side, all charm and urbanity: it had been almost impossible to believe him guilty of the crimes of which he stood accused. Van Helsing had faced countless evils before, and conquered them. That and the changelessness of his long life had made him arrogant. He'd known that he could bring Vladislaus back into the light. He'd let himself be drawn in --

A light flared, and Van Helsing swore and covered his eyes again: but it was only a sulphur-match.

"These nightmares still trouble you," said Carl diffidently, raising the candle high to cast more light into the room. "Although the greatest of your foes is dead."

"Who knows whether he was the worst?" Van Helsing said. He stared into the shadows, watching for movement.

"They said he was the devil's son," said Carl. "You told me so yourself."

"I knew his father," said Van Helsing carelessly. "He wasn't ..."

"Wasn't what?" said the monk eventually, when Van Helsing said no more.

"I don't know. I -- didn't remember, until now."

What had he been dreaming about? His past, perhaps. He'd dreamt of meeting Dracula long ago, before ... before the Order, before the deaths he'd meted out in their name all over Europe and beyond. The Count had recognised him, when they met at last in the castle beyond the gate. He'd called Van Helsing by his given name. Perhaps that had been enough to trigger a nightmare. Perhaps that was all it had been: the phantasms of a guilt-ridden mind, a murderer's catechism.

But in the dream, he'd known himself. He'd known ...

Van Helsing frowned, remembering bluebells.

-end-


End file.
